Animals | wordsfromanneli

July 3, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 42 Comments

Wilma and Woody

Hi, I’m Woody. Not like Woody Woodpecker. Woody, like short for Woodrow.

Have you heard the news? There’s a big food fest at Anneli’s.

This old stump has been here at least twenty years. I bet there are some well-established bugs inside.

Oof! Wa-a-a-ay inside.

Okay. There’s got to be an easier way.

Maybe I’ll check on Wilma and see if she’s found anything that’s easier to get to.

Woodrow, Woodrow,

Checks the wood growth,

Looking for some bugs.

Sticks his beak in,

Bugs he’s findin’,

Spears them and he tugs.

They’re elusive,

Not conducive,

To a snacky lunch.

Wilma beckons,

Food, he reckons,

Least that is his hunch.

Tried the stump here,

Bugs have no fear,

He can’t reach that far.

Wilma eats well,

That he can tell,

Finds more food by far.

Woody sweet talks,

Wilma just gawks,

Gives up her good spot.

This is great stuff,

Searching’s not tough,

Wilma, thanks a lot.

*****

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Or go to Amazon’s Music sites and do a search for The Birkenna Project. Look for three songs newly uploaded to the album with three more to come soon.

July 1, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 22 Comments

The Weed Eater

“Oh no! Is that who I think it is? ”

“Hi Jasper. What are you up to? Any lunch you want to share?”

Oh darn it all. She always shows up at lunch time.

“”Er, ah, hi Roberta. I was just going to have my VEGETARIAN lunch. Nothing you’d be interested in.”

“What is that you’re eating, Jasper? Don’t you prefer seeds and nuts?”

“Yes, well, when it’s hot like this, I like a few greens to help with the thirst.”

“Oh, what the heck. Come on over. There are plenty of weeds to spare in Anneli’s yard. I’m helping her with the weed eating.”

And I’m almost as fast manually as she is with the electric one. I’m like that song by Hall and Oates, The Maneater, except my words are a little bit different.

Oh-oh, here I come.

Watch out weeds, I’ll chew you up.

Oh-oh, here I come.

I’m a weed eater.

June 19, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 50 Comments

Flossie Flicker

“Sit still, Flossie. I see Anneli out there with her camera again. Don’t move.”

“Oh, whew! She’s just taking pictures of her poppies. That IS a nice one though, isn’t it?”

“I hear ya, I hear ya. You don’t care about the flowers…. You’ll just have to be patient and I’ll find a bug for you.”

“Oh, this motherhood is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“But then they grow up and they make you proud. Must keep that in mind.”

Flossie Flicker flies around,

Making that familiar sound,

FLICK-a, FLICK-a, FLICK, she cries,

Mother’s tired and she sighs.

“Feeding Flossie all day long,

I’m exhausted, not so strong,

But the child is growing fast

She’ll be beautiful at last.

“All my work will be worthwhile,

And I know her dad will smile,

Saying she’s a gorgeous girl,

Best darn flicker in the world.”

*****

Do you like music? Why not go to Spotify then type in The Birkenna Project in the Search bar. Spotify – Web Player: Music for everyone

Or go to Amazon’s Music sites and do a search for The Birkenna Project. Look for three songs newly uploaded to the album with three more to come soon.

June 15, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 23 Comments

Hunting Lesson for Reuben the Robin

“A mother’s work is never done,” says Roberta Robin.

“Come on, Reuben. We have to teach you to hunt for yourself. I can’t keep doing this for you.”

“This is what we’re after.”

“Now watch carefully and I’ll show you how to hunt for these yummy earthworms.”

“First, you have to listen. That means you don’t shuffle your feet and you don’t squawk and run around. That sends them underground.”

“But they ARE underground, aren’t they?” Reuben asks.

“I meant ‘figuratively speaking,'” Roberta says with a sigh. “You’re overthinking this. It’s just a worm hunt. So you lean over like this, close to the ground, and listen. And keep your eyes open too because you might see the grass wiggle as they try to escape.”

“Then when you hear one making a run for it–”

“But they don’t have any legs. How can they make a run for it?” Reuben asks.

“FIGURATIVELY speaking!” Roberta sighs. “Why me? Why did I have to give birth to a little professor?”

“As I was saying, when they make a ru– er… a bid for freedom, you snag ’em with your beak. You might have to dig and peck a little but if you’re quick you’ll get the worm.”

“So it’s the quick bird that gets the worm,” Reuben says. “Not necessarily the early bird.”

“Here you go, Professor Reuben,” says Roberta. “Now you try it. The next one I get will be for me, so you’d better try hard to get your own. That’s it. Get that ear to the ground.”

While I grab a bite for myself at last!

June 11, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 42 Comments

Wilma the Pileated Woodpecker

Wilma is a pileated woodpecker. She doesn’t have the red slash that the males have under their cheek. Wilma is a juvenile. Her red topknot is not yet fully developed.

She is hungry for insects, her main food.

“Oh, look! There’s Anneli’s garden,” says Wilma. “She’s always complaining about the bugs in it. I should check it out.”

“Now let’s have a look. Yup! Lots of weeds, so that’s good for my bug search.”

“Just got to make sure that dog of hers isn’t around. That Emma can be a real nuisance.”

“Okay, first raised bed. Hmm … nothing but stray poppies and weeds. What gives?”

“And over here, she hasn’t even planted anything … other than a few rocks.”

“These oriental poppies look pretty. Buzzing with bees inside them. But I’m looking for bugs, not bees.”

“Okay, so that was a bust. I think I’ll just stick to my roaming around and around these fir trees, and maybe check out a few stumps.”

“By the way, you want to hear my dad calling? He is magnificent!”

June 6, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 26 Comments

Competition

Jasper and Caspar are two of Lincoln’s babies. They bumble and bounce around the woodshed and the trees, quite naively, unaware that danger lurks everywhere.

But today, Jasper cares only about eating.

“It’s a chilly day for June,” he says. “I have to eat something to warm up. I’ll try this bit of bark .”

“Oops! Oh darn. It fell between the logs. It wasn’t that tasty anyway. I need to find a cone.”

“Maybe there’s one tucked inside this stump.”

“Ho-Hohhhh!” says Caspar. “What are you up to, Jasper? Anything I can help you find?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all.” Jasper tries to sound convincing. “Why don’t you just go find your own cones, Caspar? This is MY stump.”

“Whew! Got rid of him. But now, to find a new cone. Let’s see…. Where can I find a cone? There must be some buried around here. I’m thinking, I’m thinking….”

“I’ll try digging here. Looks like a lot of digging has been going on.”

“Ahh … yes! My reward for all my hard work. Now I’d better find a safe place to eat it.”

Jasper and Caspar have once shared a nest

Now they just fight about who is the best.

Who can find hazelnuts, filberts, and cones?

Who fills his stomach then lies down and groans?

One finds a treasure, the other sneaks in,

Stuffs up his face from his cheeks to his chin,

Runs to a stump where he gobbles his loot,

Before brother jumps up to give him the boot.

Backflips and scampers around and around,

Climbing up fir trees till he can’t be found,

“I’ll get you for that,” Jasper chatters out loud.

“So catch me,” sneers Caspar. He’s feeling quite proud.

“What about sharing?” our Jasper exclaims.

Quivering mad, he is tired of these games.

“Dig,” Caspar says, “there are more cones to find,

It’s called competition, and that, I don’t mind.”

June 4, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 32 Comments

Beary Scary

Years ago, before I got a good camera, I took this photo of a grizzly. It’s not very clear, but I really didn’t want to do a close-up.

This is the Orford River which flows into Bute Inlet on the west coast of British Columbia.

We had tied the fish boat to a small dock in a bay around the corner, and then took a ride up the river in our aluminum skiff. The area was known for grizzlies and we wanted to see one, but I hadn’t counted on two things:

that we would actually see one not too far away,

and that the mouth of the Orford has a lot of sandbars.

I’ve had nightmares about bears forever, but it would still be a big deal to see one. I knew if a bear actually came along and tried to chase us, we could just turn the skiff around, rev up the outboard, and roar out of there.

On the way upriver though, we were pushing the boat off one sandbar after another with the oars to keep in water deep enough to use the motor. These sandbars were spotty and just when you thought you were in the clear, up popped another one. So I was even more nervous than usual. And of course that’s when we saw him.

Even with his hind end in the water, as he swatted at salmon going by, I could tell he was huge. We watched for a moment or two, but when he saw us, we knew it.

His head came up and he stretched his neck up tall. Then as he sauntered in our direction along the fallen log that you see lying across the river, we thought it was time to get out of there.

There are some things you do in your life that seem okay at the time, and later you say to yourself, “What was I thinking?!”

This was one of those times.

It was a big thrill to see the bear, but what if he hadn’t been so agreeable? Didn’t I know how fast they can run for a short sprint? And what if we had gotten high-centered on one of those sandbars in our haste to get away.

Everything could have ended up differently.

And I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about it,

because bears don’t have Internet inside their bellies.

May 23, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 38 Comments

The Olympic Diver

Evidence of long ago logging documents the size of some of the trees that used to grow around the lake. All around, lie smaller logs that have been knocked down by wind or by the annual flooding of the lake as heavy rainfall swells the feeder creeks, or snow melt causes the lake to rise.

So the lake has areas where a boater must take care to avoid half-sunken logs and deadheads.

One such deadhead was just below the surface of the lake, so some thoughtful person attached a white float marker to it as a warning to boaters. I don’t have a photo of this marker, but it was a fair distance from shore.

I should mention that when Emma was only six months old, the Captain was walking along the banks of the Missouri River with her in Montana. Without warning, Emma jumped from the four-foot-high bank into the river. She loves the water.

So you can guess what she did as we motored along, and Emma spied the float. She must have thought it was a duck that needed to be retrieved.

A flying leap, an Olympic dive, two gasps from us in the boat!

The Captain immediately shut down the outboard motor, called his enthusiastic dog back to the boat, and hoisted her aboard. I expected to get shaken on, but what I didn’t count on was that she leaned on me on her way back to her front row seat and got my backside sopping wet before she gave me her shower.

I remember the Captain asking me then if I still loved my dog.

May 18, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 22 Comments

Giant Cedars

Do you see a tiny dark creature at the base of one of the forest giants? It’s Emma the Explorer.

Look at me, Anneli. I’m at the foot of the Empire State Tree. I can’t climb, and there’s no elevator. It sure looks huge from where I am. Click to make the picture bigger and maybe you’ll see me. I’m black and have a white nose.

Giant cedars standing tall,
Many here have yet to fall,
Others tumbled to the lake,
Fell so hard the earth did shake.

Still they keep their feet on shore,
Though they won't grow anymore,
Flooding waters soaked their boots,
And by force they lost their roots.

What these giant trees have seen,
Since they first began to lean,
Has a bear once scratched his hide,
On the cedar's sunny side?

Has a buck his antlers rubbed,
Losing velvet as he scrubbed?
Did an eagle perched aloft,
Make his nest there, downy soft?

Cedars lying in the lake,
Tangle trout that lures do take,
Lucky fish will break the line,
Swim away and feel just fine.

Silent sentinels await,
And one day they'll meet their fate,
Younger trees will then stand guard,
While the old ones fall down hard.

But the cycle carries on,
Wood in water will be gone,
Many seasons come and go,
And the young have room to grow.

April 30, 2021
by wordsfromanneli 49 Comments

Spaniels’ Play Date

Sweet little Bailey, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, came over to visit Emma, the English cocker, for a play date.

The first thing she noticed was the outside dog kennel.

“What’s that building?” she asks Emma. “It looks like a hotel.”

“Oh, that’s my outdoor doghouse where I can stay safely when the people are away shopping. I have room to walk around in the playpen and I have a doghouse where I can have a nap. It’s locked up tight so nothing can hurt me while the people are away.”

“And you like it in there?”